1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an automatic playing apparatus and an electronic musical instrument, in which an image indication is switched in association with tune data played by a player or tune data automatically played.
2. Description of the Related Art
With recent progress in functions of electronic musical instruments and automatic playing apparatus, there have been developed such electronic musical instruments and automatic playing apparatus as not only allows a performance with a mono musical tone but also are capable of generating a plurality of musical tones simultaneously. Further, an electronic musical instrument and automatic playing apparatus provided with a display unit have been put on the market.
The display units of the automatic playing apparatus and the electronic musical instrument are used to indicate a title of a tune to be automatically performed and are also used to teach a player how to operate the instrument or how to use the functions of apparatus.
Some of these conventional electronic musical instruments and automatic playing apparatus are provided with a demonstration mode in addition to a playing mode to display image data for demonstration in place of tune titles and how to operate the musical instrument. Further, there has been proposed to put these instruments at store fronts and to indicate image data for demonstration on the display unit for sales promotion.
These conventional automatic playing apparatus with a display unit hold image data which have nothing to do with performance data of tunes or musical programs to be automatically played. Therefore, these automatic playing apparatus display image data on the display unit independently of performance of musical programs, so that the indication on the display unit are not changed in accordance with performance of musical programs. As a result, the indication or image on the display unit tells nothing about transition of contents of performance of a musical program and composition of the musical program. The indication on the display unit can not be used conveniently and gives nothing interesting to customers.
To overcome these problems of dull indication on the display unit, there has been proposed a solution, in which continuous image data corresponding to a moving image are previously stored, and indication on the display unit is changed in accordance with the continuous image data to display an indication that changes as a musical program is being played. But this solution needs large memory capacity. Another solution therefore has been proposed, in which a plurality of picture data corresponding to a plurality of still pictures are previously stored, and these picture data are selectively switched and sent to a display unit, and whereby the indication on the display unit is switched every switching timing to display picture data, as if a moving picture is displayed (a false moving picture). The false moving picture is displayed for demonstration to excite customers' purchase interest, for example, at store fronts where electronic musical instruments are displayed for sale.
To display the false moving picture, there must be stored switching data for switching the indication on the display unit in addition to a series of performance data for performing an automatic-playing operation, i.e., tone-pitch data, tone-length data and velocity data of musical tones, which compose a musical program. The switching data for switching the indication are inserted into the above series of performance data and are stored in a memory provided for storing the performance data, and otherwise the switching data must be stored in a memory which is specialized for storing the same. In either event, the automatic playing apparatus needs memory capacity for storing the switching data that is larger than memory capacity required for storing performance data. With use of memory capacity required only for storing the performance data, the false moving picture can not be displayed.
Some of conventional electronic musical instruments are provided with display units, but they display only a musical score or functions of the instrument, but do not display data in association with input musical tones. Therefore, these electronic musical instruments do not show the inherent features as an electronic musical instrument. In particular, it is hard for a player to visually understand dynamism of performance (for example, velocity data such as intensity and velocity of a depressed key, number of musical tones as being simultaneously generated, change in tone pitches) with the conventional electronic musical instrument.
In other words, the conventional electronic musical instrument with a display unit displays an indication that is independent of input performance data, and are lack of attraction, raising no marketable value.